chielk - Slashdot User

Submission + - The Pirate Bay Will Keep Serving Torrents (activepolitic.com)

Submitted by bs0d3 on Monday January 16, 2012 @06:08PM

bs0d3 writes: In response to a torrentfreak article, thepiratebay has issued a statement to confirm that they are in fact keeping torrents. The article seems to be premature or based on some speculation from a piratebay insider. The story of how thepiratebay was going to stop serving torrents was picked up and followed by the many mainstream news sites and aggregators.

Submission + - Primetime episode of TV drama 'The Good Wife' abou (bitcoinmedia.com)

Submitted by

genjix

on Monday January 16, 2012 @05:18AM

genjix writes: "The Good Wife is a primetime TV series legal drama. Every week they take on new legal cases and solve them in some way. This time they took on a case protecting a lawyer defending the creator of Bitcoin dubbed Mr. Bitcoin against the petty and bitter US treasury.

From the imitation WeUseCoins video spending half a minute explaining Bitcoin, to court case explanations on Bitcoin's utility for online commerce, the entire show was very positive towards Bitcoin. During one scene, a man eludes how he paid for his hotel, food and a 'special' movie using Bitcoins, and we hear how people purchase them online.

The show touches on Bitcoin's idealistic roots and references Occupy Wallstreet numerous times. The Bitcoin lawyer is even shown to be fighting in favour of Occupy Wallstreet protestors pro-bono (free of charge).

Currently "bit coin" is in the top 10 trends on Google. Amir Taaki has written a review, saying the episode "made bitcoin [look] sexy, cool and mysterious."

Quote from the movie: "Bitcoin, it's the future"."

Submission + - H.R. 3699 seeks to curtail public access mandates (umich.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10, 2012 @06:24PM

An anonymous reader writes: "In case SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, hasn’t given you enough heartburn, here’s another development on the legislative horizon to be concerned about–H.R. 3699, the Research Works Act. The Association of American Publishers has provided a summary of what they hope the bill will accomplish, which is a frightening read for those of us committed to the principles of Open Access. It appears that H.R. 3699 would seriously threaten public access to federally funded research and deal a critical blow to the Open Access movement, which has been buoyed by exactly the kind of activity H.R. 3699 seeks to curtail in the AAP’s view, namely public access mandates and the development of repositories for publicly funded research."

Submission + - Qualcomm Wants A Piece Of The PC Market (itworld.com)

Submitted by

jfruhlinger

on Tuesday January 10, 2012 @06:18PM

jfruhlinger writes: "Much of Intel's story of the past few years has involved its so far fruitless attempts to break into the smartphone and tablet market. But as it keeps trying, it may find competition on its home turf: Qualcomm, which makes many of the ARM-based chips in those smartphones and tablets, wants to make PCs, too. The advent of Windows 8 for ARM and Android will make this possible."

Submission + - Microsoft Patches BEAST, Adobe Introduces JavaScri (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey on Tuesday January 10, 2012 @06:00PM

wiredmikey writes: Microsoft and Adobe Systems released several patches today to plug security holes in their products.

Only one of the month’s seven Microsoft Patch Tuesday bulletins is rated ‘critical’; the others are considered ‘important.’ Also bundled in with the fixes is the patch for the SSL vulnerability exploited by the BEAST attack tool developed by security researchers Juliano Rizzo and Thai Duong.

More interesting is Adobe's move to introduce new JavaScript whitelisting capability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat X. “Adobe Reader and Acrobat allow administrators to disable the execution of JavaScript embedded in PDF files, a potential attack vector for exploits,” Adobe said. JavaScript execution in PDF files based on document trust, and If a document is trusted, JavaScript execution will be allowed; if not, Reader and Acrobat will block all JavaScript execution.

Submission + - Clever Math May Spawn 3D Cameras for Mobile Phones (medicaldaily.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, 2012 @04:42PM

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have used clever mathematical solutions to make a 3-D camera so simple, cheap and power-efficient that it could one day be incorporated into handheld devices such as cellphones.
While HTC recently began marketing the HTC EVO 3D as a device with a 3-D display and 3-D camera, it is not exactly a 3-D camera. Its display is created with two separate cameras on the back of the phone that creates a binocular disparity with two 2-D images, much like the combined perception of left and right eyes.
The technology created by researchers at MIT is more like Microsoft's Kinect, a device that lets video gamers control games with physical gestures instead of controllers and other more sophisticated depth-sensing devices.
Kinect works by producing a visual map of a scene by utilizing information about the distance to individual objects. Researchers at MIT have used Kinect's concept of visual mapping to create a computer interface that can be used as a navigation system for miniature helicopters and holographic video transmitters and a number of other technologies.

Submission + - native client CAD submitted to chrome store (google.com)

Submitted by spoony1971 on Wednesday January 04, 2012 @09:25AM

spoony1971 writes: TorApp vector designer is the world's first serious desktop application in native client. It is now submitted to the chrome web store.

Submission + - US Survey Shows Piracy Common and Accepted (activepolitic.com)

Submitted by bs0d3 on Tuesday January 03, 2012 @05:47PM

bs0d3 writes: A new US survey sponsored by The American Assembly, has revealed that piracy is both common and accepted. The surveys findings show that 46% of adults and 75% of young people have bought, copied, or downloaded some copyright infringing material. 70% of those surveyed said it's reasonable to share music files with friends and family. Support for internet blocking schemes was 16%. Read the full report here.

Submission + - Retailers Value Google+ More Than Facebook, Twitte (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 03, 2012 @05:32PM

An anonymous reader writes: Google’s +1 button is reportedly more popular than Facebook’s Like button and Twitter’s Tweet button, at least amongst retailers. In other words, when it comes to social plugins, Google+ is already embedded on more retail websites than Facebook or Twitter.

Submission + - Judge Rules No Warrant Needed For GPS Tracking (activepolitic.com)

Submitted by bs0d3 on Tuesday January 03, 2012 @05:04PM

bs0d3 writes: A Missouri federal judge ruled the FBI did not need a warrant to secretly attach a GPS-monitoring device to a suspect's car to track his public movements for two months. As noted in the ruling, the Judge believed that the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the exterior (undercarriage) of his car. The Supreme Court will rule on GPS tracking this year.

Submission + - Linux Mint developer forks Gnome 3 (webupd8.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21, 2011 @05:31PM

An anonymous reader writes: Clement Lefebvre, the Linux Mint founder, has forked Gnome 3 and named it Cinnamon. Mint has experimented with extensions to gnome in the latest release of their operating system but in order to make the experience they are aiming for really work, they needed an actual fork. The goal of this fork is to use the improved Gnome 3 internals and put a more familiar Gnome 2 interface on it.

Submission + - NASA wants solar-powered spacecraft propulsion (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday September 13, 2011 @04:06PM

coondoggie writes: "NASA today said it picked five companies to begin exploring the feasibility of using solar electric propulsion to power future spacecraft.
According to NASA, multiple studies have shown the advantages of using solar electric propulsion to transport heavy payloads from low Earth orbit to higher orbits. The idea would be that traditional chemical rockets could deliver payloads to low Earth orbit and solar electric propulsion could then power a spacecraft to higher energy orbits."

Submission + - Intel turns heads with solar-powered CPU (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

nk497

on Tuesday September 13, 2011 @03:06PM

nk497 writes: "Intel unveiled a host of news at IDF today — a tie-up with Android, 22nm details — but the demo that turned the most heads was a CPU powered entirely by solar energy, a pair of desktop lamps in this case. CEO Paul Otellini said the demo was a lab experiment and wasn't likely to make its way into a product any time soon, but highlighted the progress made with alternative energy and lower power consumption in chips. "A Pentium-class processor running on solar, that was unheard of even six months ago,” he told IDF delegates."

Submission + - Potentially life-supporting planet found (swissinfo.ch)

Submitted by il_genio on Monday August 29, 2011 @04:41PM

il_genio writes: Researchers from the Geneva astronomical observatory have discovered a planet which they say is one of the best candidates for the ability to support life.

The planet – known as HD 85512 b — and its star — HD 85512 – are some 36 light years away from our solar system, according to an article published in the specialist magazine "Astronomy & Astrophysics".

It is 3.6 times heavier than Earth and takes just 54 days to orbit its sun.

The article says the planet is at the inside limit of the “habitable zone”, defined as the distance close enough to its star to stop water freezing, and far enough to prevent it evaporating away.

Submission + - Swedish physicists confirm LENR (nyteknik.se) 2

Submitted by spirito on Sunday April 10, 2011 @11:06AM

spirito writes: Two Swedish physicists recently supervised a new test on the E-cat, a device capable of producing energy using nickel powder, water vapor and "secret" catalysts. In the report they write: “Any chemical process should be ruled out for producing 25 kWh from whatever is in a 50 cubic centimeter container. The only alternative explanation is that there is some kind of a nuclear process that gives rise to the measured energy production.” In the used powder 10% copper was found.

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